Title IX Definitions

Intimate Partner: A person who is legally married to one another; persons formerly married to one another; persons who have a child in common, regardless of whether such persons are married or have lived together at any time; couples who live together or have lived together; or persons who are dating or who have dated in the past, including same sex couples.

Consent: The affirmative, unambiguous, and voluntary agreement to engage in a specific sexual activity during a sexual encounter. An individual who was asleep, or mentally or physically incapacitated, either through the effect of drugs or alcohol or for any other reason, or who was under duress, threat, coercion, or force, is not able to give consent. Further, one cannot infer consent under circumstances in which consent was not clear, including but not limited to the absence of “no” or “stop,” or the existence of a prior or current relationship or sexual activity. The Official Code of Georgia Annotated defines the legal age of consent for sexual contact as sixteen years of age.

Rape: Any penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.

Sexual Assault: Any sexual act in which a person is coerced or physically forced to engage against their will, or any non-consensual sexual touching of a person. A forcible or nonforcible offense that meets the definition of rape, fondling, incest, or statutory rape defined under the uniform crime reporting system of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Dating Violence: A violence committed by a person who is or has been in a social relationship of a romantic or intimate nature with the victim. The existence of such a relationship would be determined based on the reporting party’s statement and with consideration of the length of the relationship, the type of relationship, and the frequency of interaction between the persons involved in the relationship. For the purposes of this definition dating violence would include, but would not be limited to, sexual or physical abuse or the threat of such abuse.

Domestic Violence: The use of abusive or violent behavior, including threats and intimidation, between people who have an ongoing or prior intimate or familial relationship, including individuals who are or have been married, living together, or dating. Domestic violence can be physical, sexual, emotional, economic, or psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person. This includes any behaviors that intimidate, manipulate, humiliate, isolate, frighten, terrorize, coerce, threaten, blame, hurt, injure, or wound someone.

Stalking: The act of engaging in a course of conduct directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to feel fear. Stalking may include, for example, non-consensual communication, including in-person communication or contact, surveillance, telephone calls, voice messages, text messages, email messages, social networking site postings, instant messages, postings of pictures or information on web sites, written letters, gifts or any other communications that are undesired and/or place another person in fear.

Sexual Violence Hate Act: A sexual violence act that manifests evidence that the victim was intentionally selected because of the perpetrator’s bias against the victim. Categories of bias that may serve as the basis for a determination that a sexual violence act is a hate crime would include the victim’s actual or perceived race, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, ethnicity, national origin, and disability.